WASHINGTON (ANP) - Het Amerikaanse leger heeft zaterdagavond bekendgemaakt dat het twee Iraanse drones heeft neergeschoten die een bedreiging vormden voor het scheepvaartverkeer in de Straat van Hormuz. Het is de nieuwste confrontatie tussen de twee landen, terwijl de spanningen in het Midden-Oosten opnieuw oplopen.

"Eerder vandaag hebben Amerikaanse troepen in het Midden-Oosten twee Iraanse eenrichtingsaanvalsdrones neergeschoten", meldde het Amerikaanse Central Command (CENTCOM) op X. "Amerikaanse troepen blijven paraat en zijn gereed om zich te blijven verdedigen tegen Iraanse agressie."

CENTCOM meldde vrijdag ook al dat het Amerikaanse leger vier Iraanse aanvalsdrones had neergehaald die richting de Straat van Hormuz vlogen. Daarna werden Iraanse radarlocaties aangevallen.

De wederzijdse aanvallen, waaronder ook een Iraanse raketaanval op Amerikaanse bondgenoten Bahrein en Koeweit, vinden plaats terwijl de regeringen van de Verenigde Staten en Iran al weken indirect overleg voeren over een mogelijke beëindiging van de oorlog.

TOLEDO (ANP) - Tijdens een festival in de Amerikaanse staat Ohio zijn zaterdagmiddag acht mensen gewond geraakt nadat zij werden beschoten. De politie van de plaats Toledo meldde dat agenten in de omgeving van het Old West End Festival "meerdere slachtoffers van een schietpartij" hadden aangetroffen. "Veel slachtoffers zijn voor behandeling naar nabijgelegen medische voorzieningen gebracht", stelde de politie snel na het schietincident in een bericht op Facebook.

De lokale nieuwszender WTOL 11 meldde iets later dat het om acht slachtoffers gaat. De burgemeester van Toledo, Wade Kapszukiewicz, liet aan de zender weten dat alle slachtoffers het naar verwachting zullen overleven.

De politie zegt "op zoek te zijn naar de verdachte of verdachten".

Het Old West End Festival is een tweedaags evenement in het historische centrum van Toledo met onder meer livemuziek en eetkraampjes.

Twee bezoekers van het festival vertelden aan de Amerikaanse zender WTOL 11 dat zij schoten hoorden en vervolgens paniek zagen uitbreken. Zij omschreven de situatie als "totale chaos". Een van de twee zei minstens tien schoten te hebben gehoord.

Een jaar geleden kreeg journalist Lieve Govers een X op diens paspoort, net als zo’n 370 andere Nederlanders al hebben.

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Sales have increased for Hyundai's under-$35,000 IONIQ 5, totalling 18,395 for the first five months of 2026, reports Electrek, "up 16% from the same period last year."


But meanwhile BYD's overseas sales surpassed 160,000 for the first time last month, "up 80% from May 2025 and 19% from the previous record of 135,098 set in April."


Through the first five months of 2026, BYD sold 616,263 vehicles overseas. In May, overseas sales accounted for over 41% of BYD's total sales. In several major markets, including the UK, BYD surpassed Tesla and Kia to become the best-selling EV brand through April. "With fuel prices remaining high, more drivers are turning to electric vehicles as a smarter and more economical choice," Bono Ge, BYD UK's Country Manager, said last month.

Elsewhere Electrek notes that Toyota's bZ (starting at under $35,000) was the third-best-selling EV in the U.S. in the first three months of 2026, behind only the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. "Last month, bZ sales doubled from May 2025, with 2,646 units sold."

And meanwhile the first Volkswagen ID. Polo and Cupra Raval models "rolled off the production line at the Group's Martorell plant in Spain, the first of several new affordable, mass-market EVs."

Starting at €24,995 ($29,000) and €26,000 ($30,100), the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval are the first models from the Group's Electric Urban Car Family...

[T]he first customer deliveries are scheduled to begin later this summer and into the fall. Following the ID. Polo and Cupra Raval, Volkswagen will introduce new members to the Electric Urban Car Family, including the ID. Cross, an electric version of the T-Cross, later this year.
According to Volkswagen, the ID. Cross will start at around €28,000 ($32,500).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ukraine targets St Petersburg in wave of strikes; Keir Starmer to host Volodymyr Zelenskyy and EU leaders for talks. What we know on day 1,565

Ukraine fired hundreds of drones at Russia early on Saturday, leaving one person dead and setting an oil depot ablaze on the final day of Russia’s flagship economic forum in St Petersburg, officials said. Many of the drones targeted St Petersburg itself, the second Ukrainian attack on the city in less than a week, with Ukraine’s SBU security services saying it had hit a naval base.

The strikes come a day after the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, rejected Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s proposal for a meeting, drawing criticism from the Ukrainian president, who accused him of “choosing war again”.

More than 140 drones were shot down over the Leningrad region, which surrounds St Petersburg, governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said. The city’s governor, Alexander Beglov, issued a rare call for residents to stay indoors during the attack. “Russian air defences prevented any damage. The condition of the three injured is assessed as minor and they have been discharged,” he said.

Russian air defences intercepted a total of 376 drones over the regions of “Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Leningrad, Novgorod, Oryol, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, and Tula, the Moscow region, Crimea Republic, Abkhazia Republic, and over the waters of the Azov and Black Seas”, Russia’s defence ministry said.

Ukraine’s SBU said it had targeted St Petersburg’s Kronstadt naval base, as well as “the Russian Navy’s 15th Arsenal in the Leningrad region”. The attacks also sparked a fire at an oil depot in the southern town of Ust-Labinsk, while drone debris killed a man in the western Tver region, according to local officials.

Zelenskyy described the strikes as a “just response” to Russian aggression against Ukraine. “It is time to end this war. But Russia’s ruler wants to keep fighting. That is why Ukrainian sanctions against this aggression are working,” he said on X. “Any manifestation of injustice against Ukraine will receive a just response.”

Russia renewed its strikes on Ukraine early on Saturday. A Russian drone killed a 64-year-old man in the southern Mykolaiv region, while a strike on the nearby Zaporizhzhia region wounded a 10-year-old boy and his father, regional authorities said. Russian drone and artillery attacks in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region killed one person and left three others wounded, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha wrote on Telegram.

Russian forces also attacked two civilian search and rescue vessels in Ukrainian waters, causing injuries, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Saturday. “The enemy launched strikes on two boats of the maritime search and rescue service which were carrying out a humanitarian mission within the Ukrainian sea corridor,” he wrote on Telegram, referring to a Black Sea route used to take vessels to Romanian ports. “Unfortunately, there are injured. Evacuation by boats of the Ukrainian navy is currently under way.”

The UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, will host Zelenskyy, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz for talks in Downing Street on Sunday to discuss support for Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader will visit the UK with the French president and German chancellor after a week of heightened hostilities and Vladimir Putin’s rejection of his proposal of face-to-face talks on Moscow’s war. The three countries meeting the Ukrainian leader are some of Kyiv’s staunchest allies. The UK and France are leading the “coalition of the willing” initiative to provide security guarantees for Ukraine as part of a peace process.

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